Archive for May 2009

If you happen to enjoy fiddling around with Google Maps and other similar tools, you might be interested in the homebrew app WiiEarth. Just as with Google Earth, you can zoom around the world, checking out various locations, but now you can do it all while sprawled out on the sofa (and without a hot laptop perched on your lap).

Finally, party lights for the people you hate. Get a bunch of these outhouse and toilet paper lights and use them at your archenemy’s (boss, mother-in-law, pet cat) birthday party. It’s sure to eliminate whatever minuscule chance there was of the two of you getting along.

Currently in beta, Phoenix Freeze is a program that allows users to use thie Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones as “keys” to their computers. After pairing your computer with your phone, Phoenix Freeze will automatically lock the computer as you go away from the computer, and it will unlock the computer as you go nearer.

Everyone loves bacon, even people who say they don’t. It’s a rule. So of course this little bacony case wins stomachs hearts at first glance. At second glance? You find out it’s not bacon, and then there are tears.

How happy would you be if your all your stuff kept on eating themselves and consequently disappearing? Like, you build a house, and then one random Tuesday you drive home to a plot of land with all of your belongings on it.

Just because you’re a robot in disguise doesn’t mean you have to be huge. These tiny little versions of two popular Transformers autobots prove quite the contrary. The latest in TakaraTomy’s Robo-Q series, these palm-sized Optimus Prime and Bumblebee robots are just too cute to be capable of any real destruction.

Check out these photos of the new Sony PSP Go portable videogame console / media player that just hit the Interweb. The PSP Go is a new handheld that lightens the load of the older PSP models by making games available via wireless download or on Memory Stick Micro cards.

Remember playing with ant farms when you were a kid? You know, the type where you’d get sand all over the place and proceed to kill all of your insect friends within a matter of minutes as you tried to fill it up?

Ever find yourself out in the middle of nowhere with not a single drop of power left in your digital gadgets? Then you might just have to grab the new Freeloader Pro, a compact device designed to charge up your portable electronics with the power of the sun.

Sure, Christmas is almost seven months away, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start getting in the spirit really, really early. Especially if you really, really love your retro video games. I first eyed Hallmark’s keepsake Pac-Man holiday ornament back in December 2008, and grabbed one for my tree then.

In even more game localization news, the atmospheric adventure Fragile is set for release outside Japan. The moody title follows Seto, a young boy traversing a ruined world in search of other people–any other people. Certainly a darker theme than the anime-inspired visuals might at first evoke, but Fragile is painted in dark strokes that suit the story’s underlying despair.

With the warm weather season finally upon us (sorry Australian and New Zealand readers), you’re probably hoping to spend lots of time in the pool this Summer. But just because you’re floating around on an inflatable raft with a piña colada in hand doesn’t mean you have to be separated from your digital music collection.

Asimov concocted the Three Laws of Robotics in 1942 and built many of his stories around these rules. While Asimov benefited greatly from those rules as an artistic concept, giving him ideas to explore, in the future our lives may really depend on robot ethics. 

For many of us, the days of arcades are long past (and if you’re lucky enough to have one nearby, cherish it!), but we remember plugging in all those quarters with a particular fondness. Well, prepare to have that fondness exploited, in the form of adorable miniature arcade cabinets.

If there’s one thing I can say about the Japanese, it’s that they’re weird. Now if there are two things I can say about the Japanese, then I say they’re weird and they’re quick to embrace technology.

If you can surf the Internet and install software without asking for help, then I’m sure downloading torrents is also a piece of cake for you. But of course there are other aspects of downloading torrents that require more knowledge and tweaking, like bandwidth settings or port forwarding.